Fish are shrinking around the world. The average body weight of nearly three-quarters of marine fish populations sampled dropped between 1960 and 2020, a recent study suggests.

boem@lemmy.world · 2 months ago

Fish are shrinking around the world. The average body weight of nearly three-quarters of marine fish populations sampled dropped between 1960 and 2020, a recent study suggests.

john89@lemmy.ca · edit-2 2 months ago

If all the biggest fish are getting caught and killed, won’t that give smaller fish an evolutionary advantage?

Fishing is a little bit different than that. It’s the big fish who are able to avoid getting caught, which is how they get to live to be so big.

enkers@sh.itjust.works · 2 months ago

Maybe if we’re talking line fishing, but I’m pretty sure most commercial fishing is done with trawling nets, where everything above a certain size is caught.

illi@lemm.ee · 2 months ago

Why is that?

Fish are shrinking around the world. The average body weight of nearly three-quarters of marine fish populations sampled dropped between 1960 and 2020, a recent study suggests.

Fish are shrinking around the world. The average body weight of nearly three-quarters of marine fish populations sampled dropped between 1960 and 2020, a recent study suggests.

Fish are shrinking around the world. Here’s why scientists are worried.